Winner 2017: Mr Sarkis Nassif – Founder & Head of Holdmark Property Group
Wednesday, 08 November 2017
Venue : Doltone House, Hyde Park
The Property Person of the Year recognises an impressive community leader who has played a major role in helping construct Australia. The 2015 Property Person of the Year award was presented to Mr Sarkis Nassif at a charity fundraising dinner in aid of Warrah Disability Services and St. Vincents Prostate Cancer Centre. The event was held at Doltone House, Hyde Park, Sydney and around 400 industry representatives attended the occasion.
Sarkis Nassif the head of Holdmark Property Group is the Urban Taskforce Property Person of the Year for 2017.
Sarkis Nassif left the instability of his homeland in 1987 and arrived in Australia to pursue his studies and set up a new life. Sarkis came to Australia with literally no ability to speak English. Within two days of arriving in Australia, Sarkis began work as a form-worker for meagre $60 a day. He worked extremely hard to put a deposit on his first home within a year of working in Sydney. From those early struggling days working as a form-worker, Sarkis set about building his company Holdmark into a major property developer in Sydney where he is building thousands of new apartments.
Sarkis’s first development project was in Victoria Avenue Concord West not far from where he lived and close to local shops and a train station. He saw the ‘for sale’ sign early one morning and purchased the site that same afternoon. In his true style of rolling up his sleeves, Sarkis was the form worker, steel fixer and civil contractor on the job.
Holdmark, under Sarkis’s leadership have now moved into much larger projects including the $2 billion urban development at Shepherds Bay with 3,000 apartments over 13 stages and 90% sold. At Majors Bay in Mortlake a $500 million project that is half completed will have 500 apartments when finished.
Other notable projects include, Burwood Plaza, which has recently been granted in principle approval proceed with five mixed use towers containing commercial, residential, retail and hotel development up to 42 storeys high. This massive development will transform two adjoining blocks in the heart of Burwood into a new bustling mixed-use destination in Burwood.
Other projects in the pipeline include a mixed-use development in Macquarie Park with 1,400 apartments in 4 towers and 25,000 sqm of commercial space and over $100 million of community benefits contributed by Holdmark. Demonstrating his appetite for risk taking, Sarkis has also proposed an 83-storey futuristic tower in the heart of Parramatta.
Previous winners of the Urban Taskforce Property Person of the Year have included Harry Triguboff, Lang Walker, Joe Khattar, Tony Perich and Iwan Sunito. The dinner where the Property Person of the Year is awarded is a charity event where funds are raised for Warrah Homes and for St Vincent’s Hospital Cancer Research. Over $3 million has been raised for these two important charities through the Property Person of the Year program.
The Urban Taskforce congratulates Sarkis on winning 2017’s Property Person of the Year!
Sarkis Nassif (left) accepting the award
from Chairman of The Urban Taskforce, Peter Daly
Sarkis Nassif (middle) with his family
